I had no idea this place existed until earlier this year. This Spring my gal wanted to visit LA and I grudgingly consented, but memories of two psychosis-inducing traffic jams on a previous visit made me insist on staying at a hotel right next to LAX. Found the PB online, seemed interesting…and it was in (gritty, desolate) walking distance…directly under the approach to one of the runways.

Fun to stand under howling metal flying machines swooping overhead, and the Proud Bird was a impressive refuge with warm service, above average food and expansive grounds. Plus: planes!
Also Hall of Aviation History photos. Over drinks and dinner we enjoyed naming carriers and types of planes as they came in for a landing past the glass wall of the dining room.

But it seemed far too large for the amount of business we witnessed and kind of an…anachronism.

Under city law, airport businesses must pay a "living wage" of nearly $16 per hour, even though the Proud Bird merely sits on LAX-owned land. It can't compete with nearby restaurants not subject to the rule.

This is one of many sad details in this story. The planes can, and should, go to a museum, but unless the employees can get a job in another airport business they may end up having to work for greatly reduced wages.

On the other hand having learned this particular fact if I’m ever in LAX I will never complain about the price of a drink and a sandwich.

I don’t know that a “sting martini” is an actual thing, but I can’t fathom what it might be a typo for, either - I would have guessed “strong,” but that would require two distinct errors, and doesn’t sound too likely.

The core of the problem appears to be that it sits on airport land. Everything else - both the lease and the wages - flows from that. Moreover, as long as it sits on airport land, neither of those two big items is subject to negotiation.

It’s bounded on two sides by roads, and the other two sides by parking lots. One of those parking lots does back on to airport facilities – lighting – but those facilities are directly backed on by a whole string of businesses on the north side of the facilities. If Google maps is to be believed, those businesses are NOT on airport land. This looks like something that sort-of gradually happened, without a clear intent at some point in the past to make the Proud Bird be on LAX owned property.

However, in my cynical experience, the land ownership change will never happen, because it would require all those people who could take action on this to do something other than say “It’s because of the rules, I can’t change those.”